Partitioning a G-Tech Drive?

S

Spiral Girl

Registered
Hi,

My G-Tech external 500 GB drive arrived today and I'm about to partition it. It was already formatted at the factory as Mac OS Extended and it says it's 465.5 GB big and 180.8 MB have been used and there are 3 folders and 10 files. When I double click on the drive it's empty so not sure what that means. Is it smaller since it's been formatted already.

Before I partition should I erase the drive first and then do the three partitions in GUID format? Will it give me more room if I erase it first and bring back those lost 35 GB?

Does partitioning it in three decrease the overall size of the drive?

Happy New Year to all :)

S.
 
35GB are not missing.
It's all in the math...
500 Billion Bytes (or 500 GB decimal as you see it) / 1024 Bytes/KB / 1024 KB/MB / 1024 MB/GB = 465.7 GB (binary as the computer sees it)
All manufacturers seem to agree with this little manipulation.
 
Why do you think you have a problem? Mac OS Extended is correct. You could choose an option for GUID or Apple Partition Map. Use GUID if you expect to use that external drive to boot an Intel Mac. Not really necessary, as Apple Partition Map will also boot an Intel Mac. GUID will not boot a PPC PowerMac.
Anyway, GUID is your partition table - the type of partition used. It's not the format of a volume. All volumes will share the same partition table. All will be GUID - or APT, your choice.
 
DeltaMac,

Thanks for the explanation. I did it as GUID and see that all the partitions individually are Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I do want to boot from an intel Mac as that is my primary machine.

S.
 
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